The pastor stood in the pulpit and gazed out over her congregation. She then announced that she had prepared not one, not two, but three sermons for that Sunday, and the congregation could choose which one she would preach. Such a deal!
"I have a $1000 sermon that will last about five minutes,” she told the parishioners.
“Or - I have a $500 sermon that will take about 15 minutes,” she continued, the congregation leaning forward in rapt attention in order to catch her every word.
“And, finally,” she concluded, “ I have a $100 sermon that will take over an hour to preach.”
She paused for a moment to let it all sink in. “And now we will receive our morning offering to see which sermon I will be giving."
There is nothing like a good laugh to lift you out of the winter doldrums. And that is going to be our focus this morning as we continue to delve into Spiritual Affective Disorder and seek to illuminate the simple daily activities that could well become spiritual practices, bringing more light – God’s light – into our lives.
However, perhaps before we can bask in the light, we need to embrace the darkness. That is certainly what the old prophet Isaiah thought. He had often reminded the Jewish people of the darkness in which they kept finding themselves – and now their circumstances were darker than ever.
You see, around 745 BCE, the Assyrian Empire was strong and getting stronger. It posed a tremendous threat to the surrounding tribes and nations, including Israel, which by now was divided: the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. The northern kingdom joined forces with Syria to resist the Assyrian Empire. The kingdom of Judah caved to the pressure and bowed to the enemy.
In the end, however, what with constant raiding, looting, and betrayals, with families, friends, and property lost, with the God of Israel forgotten and other gods turned to, the once proud but perennially disobedient people of Yahweh/God were the first to be conquered, overrun, and eventually deported.
It could not get much darker than that: the tribe decimated, the Temple in Jerusalem a pile of rubble. Lutheran pastor Donald Peterson described the kind of darkness that enveloped these hapless Israelites: “Not physical darkness, something worse, a spiritual, emotional, or mental Darkness that blinds us, a Darkness that’s impenetrable and never-ending, and one that isn’t imaginary or just in our heads. The Darkness is real, powerful and persistent and it’s not something that’ll go away if we just ignore it.”
The curtain goes up on a completely darkened stage, and in this darkness a solitary circle of light from a street lamp comes on. Comedian Karl Valentin, with a long and worried look on his face, walks around and around in this circle of light, desperately looking for something. A police officer joins him and asks what he has lost.
He said, "The key to my house."
They both go around and around the lamp post looking for the key. After a while the policeman asks him: "Are you sure you lost it here?"
"Oh no," said Valentin, "I lost it over there," as he points to a dark corner of the stage.
"Then why in the world are you looking for it here?" asks the policeman.
"There is no light over there," said Valentin.
It was into such seemingly never-ending darkness that the words of the prophet echoed off its farthest reaches: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who live in the land of deep darkness, on them has light shone…” Words of hope, words of light, in a time of hopelessness, in a time of darkness.
Who would have thought that one more time God would have forgiven and embraced God’s chosen people? Who would have thought that God would not have finally given up on them?
Surely the ancient faithful greeted the words of Isaiah not only with sighs of relief and prayers of thanksgiving, but I bet someone chortled, laughed. Laughed to keep from crying perhaps, but more likely laughed out of joy and gratitude.
Over the past 2000+ years, we in the church have done an outstanding job of molding Christianity into such serious and forbidding business. Remember Jonathan Edwards classic line in his memorable sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of any Angry God? “The God that holds you over the pit of hell,” he shouted, “much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, (that God) abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked.”
Yikes! For the Puritanical Edwards – and for many of our right wing conservative Christian brothers and sisters today, religion is no laughing matter.
However, the Bible is rife with references – direct and indirect – to laughter. Our God is a God of Love, and surely love at its best can invoke nothing but laughter and joy.
A little boy opened the big family bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages.
"Mama, look what I found", the boy called out.
"What have you got there, dear?" she answered.
With astonishment in the young boy's voice, he replied, "I think it's Adam's underwear!"
Well, I do not know whether the mythological story of Adam and Eve ever included laughter. However, later in that same book of Genesis, we find Abraham letting loose with a loud guffaw when God told him that his elderly, long barren, wife, Sarah, would have a baby: “May a man a hundred years old have a child?” Abraham asks between snorts of merriment. “Will Sarah, at ninety years old, give birth?”
Sarah too found the whole situation equally funny – not only the prospect of having a baby, but also doing what would be necessary to get pregnant in the first place: “Now that I am used up,” she snickers, “am I still to have pleasure, my husband himself being old?”
Of course, it came to pass as God had told them. And when their son was born, Abraham and Sarah named him Isaac, which in Hebrew means laughter.
“A time to laugh and a time to weep”…. “Even while laughing the heart may be sad….” Ecclesiastes…Proverbs. It is all there.
And surely Jesus meant for his listeners to laugh. As blogger Leah Schade commented, people “loved to be around him because he told humorous stories, poked fun at the stuffy religious leaders, and rode that donkey like a tricycle into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.”
There was the real knee slapper he told about the widow who kept pestering the judge for justice until he could not stand it anymore and gave in to her. And what about the hilarious tale of the person who tossed pebbles at that bedroom window in the dead of night until his friend finally woke up, stuck his head out, and asked what on earth he was doing, dragging him out of sound sleep – for what?
And then we have the Beatitudes: “Blessed are you who weep now, for one day you shall laugh.” And of course, God had the last laugh when everyone thought that Jesus was deader than a doornail, but soon enough found out differently.
A couple had two little boys, ages 8 and 10, who were always getting into trouble. If any mischief occurred, these boys were likely involved.
Now their mother knew that the local pastor had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The pastor agreed, but asked to see them individually. So the mother sent the younger one first.
The pastor, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly, "Young man, where is God?"
The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response. The pastor looked all around him and repeated the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God!!?" Again the boy did not answer. So the pastor raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed, "WHERE IS GOD!?"
The boy shrieked and bolted from the room, ran home, and hid in his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him, he asked, "What happened?"
The younger brother, terrified, replied, "We are in BIG trouble this time, dude. God is missing - and they think WE did it!"
It feels good to laugh in a darkened world. Moments of laughter allow just a sliver of light to get into our hearts and psyches, but just a sliver is likely enough to begin to let the light of God in. And besides, it just feels good to take time out to laugh when things are not going the way we would hope in our lives – not laughing at the circumstances but laughing in spite of the circumstances.
We do not laugh at the cancer diagnosis, but perhaps we laugh at the baby who is herself bubbling over with laughter when she finds her toes for the very first time. We do not laugh at the refugees fleeing the violence that characterizes their homelands, but perhaps we laugh when we spot the first robins migrating north in spring. We do not laugh at what sometimes seems the hopelessness of climate change, but perhaps we laugh at the crocuses that insist upon blooming year after year just inches from the snow in our backyards.
Developing laughter as a spiritual practice will probably mean embracing a paradigm shift in our lives, but it is worth it. As we saw in the movie clip earlier, Patch Adams clearly thought that laughter was the best medicine – and I believe that he is not alone.
Laughter has such God-given power to heal and restore. Remember as children? Most of us used to laugh literally hundreds of times a day, but we lost that capacity somewhere along the way. In the end, however, laughter is good for you – and a variety of studies support that fact.
Laughter relaxes you. Did you know that a good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after?
Laughter boosts your immune system by decreasing stress hormones and increasing infection-fighting antibodies. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals, even as it improves the function of blood vessels, increasing blood flow. And nothing diffuses anger and conflict faster than a shared laugh. Looking at the funny side can put problems into perspective and enable you to move on without clutching at bitterness or resentment.
And here is a good one! Laughter burns calories. It is no replacement for going to the gym or the pool, but one study found that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day can burn approximately 40 calories—which could be enough to lose three or four pounds over the course of a year.
Comedian George Burns once quipped, ““The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, and to have the two as close together as possible.”
So I am going to take his advice, and wrap this sermon up with a challenge to you. I want you to try to embrace laughter and experiment with it as a spiritual practice this week.
First, I challenge you to find something to laugh at each day – not derisive laughter at an outrageous tweet or sarcastic and scornful laughter at someone else’s misfortune. Rather, I challenge you to laugh at yourself perhaps or to laugh at something that brings you joy.
Laugh because you are only human. Laugh because you recognize that your life has blessings, that there is something about it to be grateful for. Be like the Dali Lama, photos of whom often show him smiling and even giggling during interviews. In other words, intentionally lighten up.
Second, help put together a congregational booklet of spiritual practices we can all use to confront Spiritual Affective Disorder. I have already had one person request a copy for her to use as part of her personal healing process following upcoming knee replacement surgery.
Last week, I asked you to send me songs that brought you joy and light – and I am still waiting for more of you to do that. This week, I challenge you to find a religious joke that you find funny and text it to me, or email it, or write it down, or tell me during coffee hour today. If you do not know any religious jokes off the top of your head, just put “religious jokes” or “holy humor” into your internet browser. I guarantee you will find something that will make you chuckle. Maybe it will be a joke like this one:
The Pope arrives at JFK airport, and a driver holding a hand-lettered sign that says, “Pope.” meets him in baggage claim. After getting the Pope’s luggage loaded in the limousine, the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the curb.
“Hey, Mr. Pope,” says the driver, “why have you not seated yourself in my excellent limo?”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” says the Pope, “they never let me drive at the Vatican, and I’d really like to drive.”
“That is very much against the rules!” protests the driver.
“There might be something extra in it for you,” replies the Pope coyly.
Reluctantly, the driver gets in the backseat, and the Pope gets behind the wheel. However, the driver quickly regretted his decision when, after leaving the airport, the Pope accelerated to 105 mph.
“Please do not drive so rapidly, Mr. Pope,” pleaded the worried driver, but the Pope kept the pedal to the metal. Within moments, they heard the siren and saw the flashing blue lights behind them.
The Pope pulled over and rolled down the window as the police officer approached, but the cop took one look at him, went back to his squad car, and got on the radio.
“I need to talk to the Chief,” he said to the dispatcher.
When the Chief got on the radio, the cop told him that he had stopped a limo going a hundred and five.
“So bust him,” said the Chief.
“I think the guy’s a big shot,” said the cop.
“All the more reason.”
“No, I mean really a big shot,” said the cop.
“What’d ya got there, the Mayor?”
“Bigger.”
“Governor?”
“Bigger than that.”
“Well,” said the Chief, “who is it, then?”
“I don’t know,” said the cop. “But he’s got the Pope driving for him.”
Amen and Amen.
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